Tropical dials can be appreciated both for their looks, and for their irony as well. What was a defective dial evolved to the point of being more collectible than the same dial without the aforementioned “defect”. Basically, it is serendipity at its apex.

While some brands have a number of watches on which tropicalization is known to occur (Rolex is an example above all, with tropical dials found on early Submariners, GMTs and Milgauss as well as modern 116520), this occurrence is much more uncommon for Audemars Piguet. Not only is the number of references which are known to tropicalize much smaller - the best known examples are ref. 5402, ref. 15002 and “The Beast” 25721 - but also the number of examples that do tropicalize would appear to be, judging by historical result, very much restricted.

The present example of ref. 25860 is already a representative of this rarefied category - and thus supremely collectible - but it can be furthermore considered as the most uncommon topicalization to be found on Audemars Piguet pieces. While usually - such as in all the examples provided above - the original dial color is black and it tends to change to chocolate, in this instance the original dial color was white and it has now achieved an incredibly attractive light mustard/chestnut hue hardly ever seen on Audemars Piguet pieces. Finally, it is important to note how the tropicalization is absolutely even, as if it was the original dial color.